A CIV game that can be played in under 4 hours allowing multiplayer games to complete
The original Civilisation and ALL of the subsequent releases on PC have been vast, sprawling, meticulously tactical games that push complexity so far that "perfect tactics" are hard or impossible to define. They have been the most popular turn-based strategy games in the industry, and for good reason. However, the majority of games last over 12 hours, and for anybody with any responsibilities at all, this can be impossible to run in a single session. And as a result, multiplayer games (particularly of the "each player in sequence" type of the first few) would be either turn-a-day style at near PBM speed that take weeks, or a specially scheduled weekend where often, the game wouldn't be over before real-world time ran out. Further, a failing empire could cling on for dozens of turns, resulting in hours or days where a player was having little fun, but couldn't quit without letting their fellow players down as the winner hadn't been decided yet.
From my perspective, this is not suited to the XBox or Playstation style. As there are so few turn-based strategy games on these consoles, at least compared to on PC, the industry clearly agrees. So the target for Civ Rev was - make a Civilisation game that's true to the series, but can also be played in an evening. And in this, they have performed miracles.
The tech tree has been simplified, and many nice ideas from Civ 4, such as Religion, have been removed. There's no palace, no worker units, and no terraforming. Road building is no longer a square-by-square slog across the landscape, but a single purchase from a city screen. While city resource gathering can still be set manually square-by-square, there's also a very efficient auto-mode, set for each city independently. What is so impressive, though, is that although micro-management is reduced, the range of tactics available from earlier Civ titles is pretty much all still available. From Settler-rushing, to culture expansion, super-city construction or early military domination, whatever your favourite way was to steal a victory in other Civ games, you can do it in Civ Rev too.
Where the game really flies, however, is the multiplayer mode. When the game first came out, there were serious problems. Some were genuine glitches - a game could freeze, each player XBox functioning fine, chat between players active, but turns not advancing. Some were exploits found, such as some players deliberately hanging the game on a "yes/no" question that needed to be answered before the next turn could begin, so that all the other players would quit and they'd get awarded the victory. I can't express how annoying that was, and the number of times I sat through an hour or more waiting for the exploiter to give in (unable to leave the room in case they suddenly decided to try to win the conventional way) reduced my overall satisfaction with the game immeasurably. And it took Firaxis a long time to work these glitches & exploits out of the system. However, I'm pleased to say they did fix them, and once they did, what was left was the best tactical turn based multiplayer ever created.
Each culture has different abilities, some at the start of the game, some that kick-in at key development stages (decided when a civ reaches specific numbers of technology advances). Many players had favourite civs, such as the Zulus, Aztechs and Arabs for their early-game military advantages, or the English and Greeks, for their early defensive unit capability. But the truth is, the capabilities of the different cultures is so close to even over a full game that a good player could make *any* culture work for them. Nothing would make me happier than to start a game against 3 other players all playing Zulu cultures. Sure, I'll have a hard time at the start, and would need to build massive quantities of defensive units. But that just means that in the late game, I'll steamroller the map.
And unlike PC games of Civ, the whole game would be over *quickly*. Each turn gives the players just 60 seconds to complete their actions, and that means you prioritise what you need to do over the old-style check each city in turn. Add to this the large number of players who think early military rushing is a good idea, it wouldn't be unusual for a game to finish inside an hour.
The ranking system helped keep players in the game when they were loosing. Players were ranked in the game according to the order in which they were eliminated; so if you were knocked down early, but managed to keep a fortified city together until after two other players quit out, you'd take 2nd place and a healthy boost in the rankings compared to coming in last. And with a global ranking table for free-for-all, some players (me included) really cared to push for 2nd place, even when 1st was denied them.
To enable the game to run this quickly, Civ Rev implements an "everyone at once" system (shared with Civ 4), which means that although the game is turn-based, each turn itself has a lot in common with real-time strategy games. For example, when a turn ends and your opponent has a catapult positioned outside your city, it is critically important as to if the catapult, or an offensive unit in the city, acts first. This can force unintuitive strategies, such as if you know you need to do something fast in the next turn, you check each of your cities isn't about to complete a building, and your civilisation isn't about to discover a new technology, and change what you're researching or building to ensure it. Because these announcements always happen at the start of a turn, and can lose you the valuable seconds you need to respond to a threat.
While I'm still not entirely comfortable with the "everyone at once" system, particularly the consequences described above, it is a small price to pay to help make the game playable on console. And if I could think of a better mechanic, I'd have sold the idea to Firaxis by now.